Heat Wave
by shdwanna
Summary: On a hot summer night, would you offer your throat to the wolf with the red roses? AxI UST (Complete!)
1. Heat Wave

Heat Wave  
  
AUTHOR: Shdwanna  
DISCLAIMER: Not mine. I don't even speak Japanese.  
DISTRIB: Want? Just tell me, and I'll lift the seal for you. :)  
SPOILERS: Not really. Takes place after ep 1, but before the Yan Invasion.  
A/N: My very first Hellsing fic.  
{ } = thoughts  
  
"How DARE you?" she shrieked at full volume, and swung a gloved palm. He allowed it to connect with a ringing crack, and chuckled.  
  
"Tell me to stop," he purred, stepping closer. "Do you want me to stop?"  
  
She took a half-step back. "Of course I do. What are you doing?"  
  
"Nothing. Testing. What am I doing, Miss Hellsing, that it bothers you so?"  
  
{Standing too close} sounded so inane she dismissed it out of hand. The concept of personal space belonged to bloody Americans. It wasn't like he hadn't stood this close to her before; it had never bothered her. {And I never had a dream like - that - about him before. But I'm sure as hell not going to tell *him* that.} "Don't you have something better to do? Training your puppy, perhaps?"  
  
"You turned her over to Ferguson, remember? Couldn't trust me to do a proper job, I believe you said." He leaned heavily on the desk, and she fought back the urge to retreat further.  
  
"Surely there are things you need to impart to her that Ferguson wouldn't know. Vampire things."  
  
"Ah, of course. 'Vampire things.' How could I forget?" He laughed and she glanced toward the mirror to assure herself that her inner turmoil wasn't visible. "Mating rituals, perhaps."  
  
Integra visibly flinched. "I really don't want to know."  
  
"Don't you, then?" His mouth curved slowly upward. "Do you know what you *smell* like... Master?"  
  
"Rather like soap, I'd imagine," she said tartly. "I have work to do, Alucard." She turned to face the desk.  
  
In that moment, he was behind her, unnecessary breath hot on her bare neck. "You should put your hair up more often. You have an exquisite...neck."  
  
She almost jerked out the pens holding up her hair at that. {He's just trying to get to you, Integra. It's the damned heat. Get a hold of yourself.} "Neck compliments from the vampire. Should I be flattered?"  
  
"Oh, yes. I'm something of a connoisseur, wouldn't you say?" That maniacal laughter, enough to make her teeth grate.  
  
"Go. Away. Go find some FREAKS to kill, or something."  
  
"And leave you alone? Wouldn't think of it." Smooth cloth stroked just below her hairline.  
  
She started to lean into it, and then realized, "Don't *touch* me." She jerked away.  
  
He smirked. "Methinks the lady doth protest too much."  
  
"Methinks the vampire is asking to get shot in the head. Get lost."  
  
"Are you sure?" he purred, slinking as close as she'd let him and then closer still.  
  
"Positive."  
  
"As you wish, then," and he evaporated almost beneath her very hand.  
  
As soon as she was certain he was gone, she dropped heavily into her desk chair, gasping. "Dear *Christ* in Heaven," she groaned. "I - it's hot tonight. Perhaps a cold shower would not be amiss."  
  
- FIN - 


	2. Jealousy or, Integra's Dream

Jealousy (Or, Integra's Dream)  
  
"I do believe you're jealous," Alucard purred, leaning against the desk.  
  
"I am not!" she snapped, feeling childish as she did. {What is it about Alucard that reduces me to yes-you-are no-I'm-not?} "I'm concerned about her utility and how dangerous she might be. Can I trust you to bring her down, if there's a problem with her?" The impending headache seemed to be settling in for the night, right between her eyes.  
  
"You *are* jealous," he smirked.  
  
"Don't be ridiculous. Pick up new girlfriends in *Cheapside*, for all I care. I just want to know -"  
  
"Integra's jealous, Integra's jealous," he singsonged, grinning like a fiend.  
  
"And are you going to say 'nanny nanny boo-boo' next?" she asked with arched eyebrows. "You sound like you're six."  
  
"You have no need to be jealous, my Master," and he was behind her, too close, burying his hands in her hair.  
  
"If I thought you were lonely, I would have bought you a dog," but she couldn't manage to give it the sting it deserved, not while he was distracting her like that.  
  
He was humming, off-key, braiding her hair. She knew from long experience that all pulling away would get her would be yanked hair. "Don't need a dog."  
  
"Not any more, I suppose not."  
  
"Sh," he soothed, rubbing at the base of her neck with more than mere human strength.  
  
"Alucard," she groaned, trying to fight his attempts to calm her. {Focus on the business at hand, Integra, not the fact that he's making your headache go away.}  
  
"You have nothing to fear from the police girl," he murmured. "I am yours, first, last, and in all ways."  
  
{All... ways? What does he mean, 'in all ways?'} He shifted her so that she was in his lap, stilling her protests with kisses.  
  
"You shouldn't," she began, but lost track of what it was he shouldn't be doing. "Alucard."  
  
"My master." Her cross clinked against the desk as he pulled the tie off. "My Integra."  
  
Integra jerked awake, muffling the reflexive shriek with her pillow. She lay panting in the hot summer dark, willing her heartbeat to slow.  
  
"That's it, Integra," she said when she could talk. "No more brandy before bed. What an - unnerving - what a *dreadful*," she seized on the word, "dream."  
  
She got out of bed and went to the open window without bothering with her glasses. The night, distant and unfocused, remained breathless. "If this heat doesn't break, I think I may go mad." With a sigh, she pulled the dead weight of her hair off her shoulders and twisted it up, holding it there. "A dream of Alucard sedu - *kissing* me is doubtless the first sign of it."  
  
Integra stumbled back to the bed, avoiding the warm hollow where she'd been lying before, and fanned her hair out on the pillow, well away from any contact with skin. She stared up into the darkness until sleep stole her awareness. 


	3. Walter's Turn

There were days when he wished he were thirty years younger.  
  
Usually it was because he longed to make her happy, truly happy; to give her a smile that wasn't quite as fleeting. On occasion it was because he couldn't see how any other man could possibly see past her defenses far enough to love her. Getting past them far enough for her to return that love - an exercise in the impossible.  
  
Of course, any man who might set his sights on Integra should be able to accomplish the impossible, just to be worthy of her.  
  
So, yes, there were days he wished he were thirty years younger.  
  
Tonight it was because it was sweltering to the point he was reminded of nights in India with Arthur, watching his old friend court the lovely native girl who would become Integra's mother. Not just that - it wasn't the temperature so much as his mistress's reaction to it.  
  
It had been overwhelmingly hot for nearly a week, and Integra had surrendered her dignity some hours ago. "Perhaps I should go sleep in the basement with the vampires," she'd groaned earlier that night. "I'm tempted to go find the deepest, dankest part of our dungeons and just lie on the floor." Instead, she'd thrown all the blankets off the bed and asked for ice.  
  
Stripped down to tank top and a pair of shorts that had been less than modest before she'd gotten her adult height, with moonbeam hair pulled atop her head in an artless pile, she sprawled across wine-red sheets in a manner that suggested that she had absolutely no idea what an alluring picture she made.  
  
Which was very alluring indeed.  
  
And although this was not the first time Walter had wished for his lost youth, it was not often for such a - hm - inappropriate - reason. Integra would doubtless be utterly horrified if she'd discovered that her aged steward was even capable of having such thoughts about her.  
  
It was a betrayal to her father. He'd promised to protect her, not - think about her in such a fashion. He was horrified himself. Loving her was one thing - he'd loved her since the day she'd been born, loved her to the very depths of his soul. She was the only woman he'd ever really loved.  
  
Most of the time it stayed properly paternal.  
  
But, damn it, he really wished she'd stop doing that thing with the ice. 


	4. Battle of Wills

She moved slowly against him, entwining long fingers through his, resisting his attempts to move her faster or harder - or shift her. When he struggled, she stopped, waiting until he gave in before moving again. She wouldn't be rushed.  
  
It was always a battle of wills, with them.  
  
Her bare skin was damp against his, and her breath came shorter and harsher as she slid against him. "Alucard." His name in her mouth, like he'd never heard it before. He forced himself to focus on her, and she met his gaze, unflinching and unafraid. Challenging.  
  
"Integra," he groaned. "Master. Please."  
  
"Please?" The corners of her mouth curved a little, somewhere between smile and an echo of his own mocking smirk.  
  
"Please," and it was nearly a whimper. No Hellsing had ever brought him so low, so fast. Never had he been controlled so easily.  
  
Never had he known a Hellsing like this one.  
  
She inclined her head and let his hands go. He pulled her down to him, claiming her mouth, running a hand through her hair, sliding the other across damp golden skin.   
  
Her skin was not the only damp part of her. "Alucard," she hissed, arching against him. This was his opportunity to tease, to return the favor maddening moment for moment, but patience had never been his strong suit.  
  
He had waited too long, already.  
  
"Are you ready?" he asked. She answered with mouth and hands and sweat-slicked body in a way that left him gasping. Absolutely fearless, his Integra. "I suppose that's a yes, then," and he guided her down. Her only reaction was a slight widening of those impossible blue eyes and a soft hitching of breath as he breached her.   
  
They stayed motionless for a brief eternity, her heartbeat in his ears the only punctuation. "All right?"  
  
"Yes," she rasped. She was trembling around him, against him. It pleased him that he'd managed to break through that iron reserve.  
  
{She's not such an ice princess now, is she?} he thought, amused. He doubted that Walter would recognize his mistress like this.  
  
"I'm ready," she said. Her voice was level now, in its normal register, and she'd stopped shaking - a mortal lover might think her calm - but he could hear her pulse, fast and fluttery, her breathing quick and shallow.  
  
"Are you, then?" He rolled her over sharply. She gasped and clung to him. Her nails traced bright fire along his back, startling him into forward motion.  
  
Integra's moan was nothing he'd ever heard before, and it became an immediate priority to make her do it again.  
  
"Master," he groaned as he sank into the empty dark.  
  
He did not hit his head on the coffin lid, sitting up too fast. He was far too old to do such a stupid thing. He was just rubbing his head to clear it.  
  
"The weather's beginning to bother *me,*" he muttered, getting up. The insidious heat had everyone acting erratically. He'd thus far remained unaffected - but it was the only way to explain the dream.  
  
It wasn't the first time he'd dreamt about his master, of course. It was just that his *usual* dream about her giving in to his advances involved a more - ahem - *traditional* vampire's embrace. The only bare skin involved was her neck. {When the heat breaks, she'll go back to jackets and buttoning her collar to her throat, and put her hair *back down* where it belongs, and everything will be fine again,} he told himself.  
  
He stepped out into the hallway. Perhaps a walk would clear his mind. 


	5. Comfort

She was standing some ten feet away when he stepped into the hall, as "out of uniform" as he'd seen her in recent years - jacketless and ungloved, sans tie, sleeves rolled up, shirt partially unbuttoned, with her hair pulled up again. A tantalizing glimpse of more bare skin provided background to a gold cross on a fine chain.  
  
It was not a version of Integra he was particularly prepared to see just then. "Alucard," she said. He thought she was surprised, but his own thoughts were too loud for him to accurately pick up on hers. "You're up late."  
  
"So are you."  
  
"I can't sleep," she said. "It's too hot."  
  
"Did you want something, then?" {Preferably something I can kill?} The scent of her, after his sweat-soaked dream, was maddening.  
  
"From you? Not a thing. If you hadn't noticed, it's considerably cooler down here than above ground."  
  
"I had."  
  
"Not that the heat appears to bother *you*."  
  
"Suffering from temperature extremes being a mortal frailty, no." He smirked.  
  
"Is that why you make that girl wear such a short skirt? She's not supposed to get cold?"  
  
The smirk became a fanged grin. "That might be one reason."  
  
She snorted. "Pig."  
  
"She doesn't complain."  
  
"She thinks you invented Heaven. Her opinion doesn't count."  
  
"Like mine?"  
  
"No, you just don't get an opinion. There's a difference."  
  
"Oh?"  
  
"She can have opinions, which everyone will ignore. You don't even get that."  
  
"Hm."  
  
"Charming how you can sound offended and sulky at the same time."  
  
"I do try." Baiting Integra, at this point, was so automatic he didn't have to think about it. Which was good - the last thing he wanted her picking up on was how *she* was disconcerting *him* - a definite reversal of the natural order of things.  
  
There was only one thing to be done about it. He loomed over her, too close, blocking the hall. "Move," she said, sharp and intense. "Alucard, stop it."  
  
"Why?" he asked, pleased with his cleverness. "Are you afraid?" He so rarely got a chance to discomfit his hypercontrolled mistress, and lately she'd been twitchy every time he got near her. It delighted him.  
  
"I'm not afraid of *you*," she snarled with biting contempt. "Get out of my way."  
  
"Where are you going?"  
  
"Not that it's any of your business."  
  
"Of course not. You never have to explain your erratic behavior to *me,* Sir Integra."  
  
"You're not too big to be spanked," she muttered. "Get *out* of my way."  
  
{Well, *that* is an image to be savored.} "Spanking? I wouldn't have thought that you'd like that sort of thing."  
  
She rolled her eyes. "Everything has to turn into some kind of innuendo with you, doesn't it? Go away, Alucard."  
  
"You're the one in my hallway, master. I was just wondering if you wanted... anything."  
  
"I already told you, no. What are you doing up anyway?"  
  
He shrugged. "Not sleeping well."  
  
"'I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams,'" she murmured, mercurial as ever, and he stepped aside to let her pass. "Walk with me?"  
  
"At your command, my master."  
  
"But never at my request?" Her expression was inscrutable.  
  
"Is there a difference?"  
  
"Requests end in a question mark. You're required to serve, not to comfort."  
  
"Comfort," he echoed. He couldn't remember a time when she'd been able to keep him this off-balance for this long.  
  
"We are not comfortable people, you and I."  
  
"I suppose not." {She's wandering the halls at three in the morning quoting _Hamlet_. Perhaps the heat *has* gotten to her.} He fell into step beside her, driven primarily by his curiosity.  
  
Her restlessness would not let them stay underground long. They walked through the compound together, avoiding the men on duty, and wandered the wilting gardens. He cast surreptitious glances at her, letting his eyes linger on patches of bare golden skin.  
  
"Is something wrong?" she asked, after the silence stretching between them had started to feel awkward.  
  
"Wrong? Not at all." He realized they were in the hedge maze and wondered how long they'd been walking without speaking. "Should there be?"  
  
Her very height was disconcerting this evening. "You're staring at me."  
  
"No, I'm not." The denial was reflexive.  
  
"What are you staring at?"  
  
"'Nothing. Your hair in the moonlight.'"  
  
"Do I look familiar?" Her expression was sardonic. "I doubt you've mistaken me for your dead girlfriend; she's rather shorter than I am."  
  
He smirked. It was so peculiar, the things she knew - and the vast spread of things she did not know. It occurred to him to wonder if she'd ever been kissed. "I don't often get to see you like this."  
  
"Like what?" She stopped at this, looking up at him.  
  
{Half-naked,} wandered across his thoughts, but she really wasn't. Seras tended to wear less than Integra was wearing right now even when she was fully clothed. {Vulnerable,} a different kind of truth, would do nothing but infuriate her. "She's not my girlfriend," he said instead.  
  
She shrugged. "It doesn't matter to me in the slightest."  
  
"You're very quick to point that out." It was a random barb, but found a solid target; Integra flushed.  
  
"I don't want you getting ideas."  
  
"Don't want me thinking that she bothers you?"  
  
"She doesn't," was the sharp-edged reply, but the flush didn't go away.  
  
He edged closer to her. They had reached the center of the maze, and she backed up until the presence of the bench in the middle of the clearing caused her to sit down hard. "Then what's bothering you, master? Obviously you're... bothered." They were almost touching.  
  
"*You're* bothering me." She was trying for tart, but not quite making it. Her pulse was racing as he sank down on the bench beside her. "Go away."  
  
"From 'walk with me' to 'go away?' Feeling fickle tonight?"  
  
"I should have known you couldn't behave yourself." She wouldn't look at him. Her scent, this close to him, was dizzying.  
  
"Give me an inch, and I shall take until you stop me." He stroked the nape of her bare neck for the second time in a week. "Are you going to?"  
  
"Stop," she said. She was trembling.  
  
"Not very convincing, master." His left hand slid across hers.  
  
She swallowed. "Alucard - don't."  
  
"Don't what? Look at me."  
  
Her eyes were wide, dilated dark in the dim light from the garden lamps. Her color was high, and the blood sang sweetly in her veins. Hellsing blood. "Seras is nothing," he said. "Merely a child."  
  
"I'm not...."  
  
"Not what?" He brought up his left hand to trace along her cheekbones and across her chin.  
  
"Jealous." The word was half-whispered.  
  
"Of course not. Why should you be?"  
  
"If I were enough for you, why would you have brought her home?" She clapped a hand over her mouth in absolute horror. "I didn't mean it like that."  
  
"You *are* jealous," he marveled. "Have you learned nothing about the world, after all?"  
  
"You implied earlier that we don't live in the same world, Alucard. Which world have I learned nothing about?"  
  
"The one you're the center of," he murmured. "Can you be the focus of everyone around you and still be that uncertain?"  
  
"The work is the focus. Not me. My father -"  
  
"Your father couldn't handle me. Why else do you think I was trapped in the basement for twenty years?"  
  
"He could run Hellsing without you." There was a trace of bitterness there; anger was always Integra's most familiar weapon.  
  
"He *couldn't* run Hellsing *with* me," he corrected, smirking. "Why must you always compare yourself to him, and yet find yourself lacking?"  
  
"Everyone says that I am. Hellsing was better when he was in charge - why can't you be more like your father, Integra?" Her imitation of Sir Percival was precise and furious.  
  
"I don't." He brought up both hands to cup her chin. "Why can't you be more like yourself, Integra?"  
  
"Who's that?" and she was halfway serious. "Don't do this."  
  
"Do what? I'm tired of watching you strive for something you'll never reach, because you passed it ten years ago."  
  
"What, because I can control you? Master of the monster? Hellsing's supposed to *destroy* vampires, and I keep one as a pet! Oh, that's definitely something to be proud of."  
  
He chuckled. "Am I your pet, now? Your loyal dog?"  
  
"That's not what I meant. You know that." She pulled away. "I'm tired; I don't know what I'm saying."  
  
"You have a touch of melancholia tonight."  
  
"A fistful, more like. I'm not fit company for man nor monster, tonight; I'm sorry."  
  
"You are always fit company for me, my master." Entirely on impulse, he pulled her to him, wrapping an arm around her waist. She actually settled against him, leaning her head on his shoulder in a way she hadn't done since her fifteenth birthday.  
  
"I suppose I was wrong," she said, voice muffled by his coat.  
  
"About what?" He started stroking the nape of her neck again.  
  
"You can be comfortable. When you want to be."  
  
He chuckled and pulled her closer. 


	6. Like Water

Like Water  
  
Integra lifted her head from where it rested against Alucard's coat. There was a sharp and increasingly loud part of her brain telling her to pull back, jerk away, get *out* of this terrifyingly compromising position.  
  
His arm was around her, which was pleasant in its own way, but, "You're hot."  
  
He chuckled. "Vampires don't suffer from temperature extremes, remember?"  
  
"Fine. *I'm* hot. Get off." She shrugged her shoulders and shifted until he pulled his arm away. It was enough to quiet the screaming voice, if not to still it completely.  
  
"It's getting late," he said.  
  
"Or early. Depending on how you look at it."  
  
"I suppose so." The arm was gone, but his hand had stolen to her neck again, glove silky against her skin. "Master...."  
  
"Don't," the part of her that wanted to run said.   
  
"Don't what?" He turned to face her, straddling the bench. "Feeling better?"  
  
"Better than what?"  
  
"Before," he said with a shrug. "You're not quite yourself tonight."  
  
"Who am I, then?"  
  
"Someone who's not afraid to be vulnerable, maybe."  
  
"I don't - I'm not...." Not sure what she was protesting, she stopped.  
  
"Sh," and his thumb brushed across her cheekbones. "It's all right."  
  
Not moving was the closest thing to surrender she could manage as he bent and pressed his mouth to hers. Almost-chaste and surprisingly gentle for Alucard, it made her breath hitch.   
  
{Outrage. Outrage would definitely be the appropriate response,} she thought as he pulled away. {You can start being outraged any moment now, Integra.} "Alucard..." Some combination of the hour and the setting gave the whole situation a dreamlike quality that blunted her emotions, making her anger unreachable. {What did he mean, someone who's not afraid to be vulnerable?}  
  
"This is where you start threatening to shoot me," he prompted. The smile teasing the corners of his mouth held nothing of the smugness she was used to.  
  
"Is it?" She sighed, exhaustion pulling at her suddenly. "I suppose it is. It seems like so much effort, though."  
  
He chuckled. "We could skip that part."  
  
"Consider yourself threatened and chastised, then."  
  
"What if I did it again?"  
  
"I probably *would* have to shoot you. For the sake of my reputation." She was pleased that her voice remained utterly calm.  
  
"I won't tell anyone. It certainly wouldn't do to have it about that Sir Integra got her first kiss from a vampire."  
  
"It wasn't my first kiss," she protested, and wondered where on Earth her iron control had disappeared to tonight. Blood rushed to her face so fast it made her dizzy.  
  
"It wasn't?" He sounded disappointed. "Are you keeping secret paramours about, then?"  
  
"He was hardly a secret paramour."  
  
"Past tense."  
  
"Very much so." The first boy she'd ever fancied; somewhat miraculously, he'd fancied her as well. His name had been Christopher, and he was in the year ahead of her. Sandy-haired, solemn-eyed on the last day before summer vacation, "Adieu, adieu, remember me," he'd said - the first time she'd read the words again in _Hamlet_ they made her cry. A kiss, faster than Alucard's, soft and sun-warmed. His family was moving to the States. "I was twelve." Before vampires and pistols and death, when her bedroom had been decorated in pink and white and her days had been filled with piano practices and dance lessons and schoolwork. She'd believed her father would live forever, and thought to take over after he chose to retire. After she'd had a career as a ballerina. "It doesn't matter."  
  
"Doesn't it, though?"  
  
She shook her head. "I never saw him again."  
  
"Were there others?"  
  
"Jealous?" she asked, perversely pleased at being able to throw the words back at him.  
  
"Children," he dismissed them. "Nothing more. Were there?"  
  
"Oh, yes, I'm surrounded by men. I have to beat them off with a stick. Hadn't you noticed?"  
  
He chuckled. "Considering that there are only two women in the entire compound? I would say you *are* surrounded by men."  
  
"Very funny."  
  
"I thought so."  
  
"You think being shot in the head is funny; you hardly qualify as the arbiter of humor."  
  
"And *you*," he pointed out, "never answered my question."  
  
"Suddenly sarcasm is not an answer?"  
  
"I think it's a reasonable question. There might have been another boy at school, after all."  
  
"No. There wasn't." The admission brought the color to her cheeks again. {But nobody talks about their *second* kiss, so I suppose it doesn't matter that it took more than ten years for me to get mine.}  
  
"Good."  
  
"And if there had been?" she challenged.  
  
He wouldn't meet her gaze. "I knew there wouldn't be - you're not meant for the likes of schoolboys."  
  
"Even when I was a schoolgirl myself?"  
  
"Even so."  
  
"And who am I meant for? Self-congratulatory vampires who need to be taken down a peg?"  
  
He was showing altogether too many teeth for her comfort. "Perhaps."  
  
"I rather think not."  
  
"Then stop me." Vampire-swift, he claimed her mouth with his own, invading, tangling gloved fingers in her pinned-up hair, the other hand on the small of her back. His mouth was warm and cool at once, intrusive but not unpleasant, tasting faintly of copper, more like well water than blood.  
  
This time the anger came to her hand. "You're *playing* with me." She flung the accusation at him.  
  
"Is that what you think?" There was a growl underlying his response.  
  
"Obviously. I won't be toyed with, Alucard. This isn't a way to convince me of anything." {Vulnerable means he can take advantage of me. Damn him, he's been playing me all night!}  
  
"Obviously not." He stood. "The sun will be rising soon. Master. Goodnight." Stiff and starkly dignified, he swept off.  
  
"I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint: my heart is like wax; it is melted," she whispered. The words gave her strength enough to get up.  
  
Her hair was falling out, and she put it back up, ignoring the way her hands were shaking. Clouds had come in whilst they'd been - she refused to define exactly what it was they had been doing. Talking. There was a breeze, unnoticed until now. It was kicking up dust, causing her eyes to sting. She pulled off her glasses, reducing the world to indistinct chaos, and rubbed at them. They were *not* wet, she was *not* crying, she had *not* let herself believe, even for a second, that the vampire actually cared about her.  
  
It was just the heat.  
  
Damned vampire. 


	7. Rainbow

"Sir Integra," Walter began, pushing open the door to her office, and stopped. The room was empty, lights off, laptop closed. He glanced at his watch. Half-past ten in the morning.  
  
Concern hurried his footsteps up to her room, where he tapped lightly at the door and then opened it. Perhaps she was ill? {Very ill - she doesn't stay in bed unless you threaten to tie her down.}  
  
She seemed to be asleep, still in her clothes, curled up and clutching a pillow. "Integra?" he asked softly, not wanting to wake her.  
  
He found himself on the receiving end of an unfocused sleepy gaze. There were dark circles under her eyes and she looked like she'd been crying. "Walter?"  
  
"Are you well?" is what he meant to say. What actually came out of his mouth was, "What's the matter, pet?"  
  
She looked stricken. "Nothing."  
  
He raised both eyebrows. "Nothing?"  
  
"Nothing. Alucard. It doesn't matter."  
  
The rage was not unexpected but rather overwhelming. "What's he done to you?" His fingers itched. If Alucard had made his mistress cry, Walter was quite willing to demonstrate that the vampire wasn't as immortal as he thought he was.  
  
"Nothing!" she repeated, more firmly. "It was my own bloody fault. What time is it?"  
  
"Integra. If he's hurt you...."  
  
"Only my dignity, Walter, which has taken no few bumps over the years. I'm fine. Really."  
  
"Then why were you crying?" he asked, as gently as he could manage.  
  
He watched her struggling with the temptation to deny it. "Foolish girlhood dreams," she said instead. She looked about sixteen, in that moment. "It's not important."  
  
"It's important to me."  
  
She sighed. "It probably is, at that. But it shouldn't be important to me."  
  
"But it is."  
  
"Is it raining?" she asked, looking toward the window. "It's cold in here."  
  
He considered resisting the less-than-subtle attempt to draw his attention away from her, but gave in. She had a right to her privacy, after all. "It is, at last. It appears that the heat wave is over."  
  
"Good," she sighed, loosening her hair. "Things can get back to normal, then." And she refused to say any more.  
  
-- FIN --   
  
And that's it for "Heat Wave." I hope everyone enjoyed it... and nobody resents the suddenly serious turn the piece took at the end. (It is impossible, I believe, for me to write fluffy Hellsing for more than four chapters.) This has been one of those delightful pieces that seem to write themselves... it decided where it wanted to go and dragged me along with it. I've worked on this thing, at various times, tired, stressed, frustrated, worried sick, half-drunk, and grieving. It's given me a wonderful outlet and a break from the AxI epic I'm fighting with. Thanks so very much for all the positive feedback - I was absolutely overwhelmed by the level and sheer amount of encouragement. Special thanks to: my beta readers, for encouraging me to experiment, and share it with the rest of the world; to Angie, whose feedback inspired chapter two (this is ALL YOUR FAULT, mwa ha ha ha); and to Telute, who inspired chapter five. This is the first time I've posted an in-progress work, and I only did it because it was supposed to be a one-shot! Thank you guys for making sure it wasn't. And thanks for listening to my rambling. :) 


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